I'll try to keep sphagetting to a minimum.
Here's the thing: I agree with this completely. The Inquisition is absolutely dysfunctional on the whole, much like, y'know, the entire rest of the Imperium. The point I'm making is that the Inquisition being dysfunctional as an institution is not predicated on a majority (much less a supermajority) of its members being personally crazy. The Inquisition is dysfunctional as an institution because the Inquisition is institutionally dysfunctional, if you'll excuse the tautology. I feel it's an important distinction to make because if you imagine that the core of the issue with the Inquisition is that 90% of everyone in it is crazy, then that's fundamentally a personnel issue. But if you conceptualize the core of the issue with the Inquisition as a problem with the institutional structuring of it, then that centers the conversation on institutional-level reform which is where I think it needs to be.
It feels like we're quibbling here, but I do disagree. As in I agree it is absolutely and indeed inherently institutionally dysfunctional, but I do disagree that its
just that.
Ya see, the thing is if the majority of Inquisitors at least did not agree with one side of the extreme of their membership then I think we'd see a lot more internal regulation.
Essentially you have an institution that's essentially a factory for madness, since to put it mildly power + massive responsibilities + lack of restriction + usually being chosen for the job based on some preexisting fanaticism or hated + toxic work culture= breeding insanity like bloatflies on a Nurgling.
You want to frame it as a institutional problem, which requires institution-level reform and you are correct too it is the only way to affect lasting change. But we can't have those changes if the personnel responsible for the mess it is currently in are there fighting us for being a heretic (in their opinion.)
I cannot see the two as separate, since fundamentally they're linked together the only difference is in how far we intend to go. If we only go so far as getting rid of the problem inquisitors and filling the ranks with ones who wouldn't take the first super weapon they see for a joy ride, well its not great, but we're in triage mode, if we go further with that then we've got to do the above anyway and they're not going to be happy about it (not that I would mind Pandora dope smacking Fydor.)
That seems quite backwards to me, honestly. It's that deliberate self-sabotage (among rather a number of other things, to be fair) that makes reform of the Imperium so desperately necessary.
The Inquisition doesn't have a dedicated ordo for watching the Inquisition, because the fundamental premise of the Inquisition's structure is that the Inquisitors who should be keeping an eye on other Inquisitors are every Inquisitor. That's not a defense of the Inquisition because that's basically a setup that is the deathknell of any effective large-scale collaboration within the institution, but the issue with the Inquisition is most certainly not a lack of self-directed paranoia.
How is it backwards? Yes its why its one of the many reasons why its necessary, but its the same reason meaningful reform is so utterly difficult, because its a strand of problem that tries to correct the imperium back towards the status quo. After all that's what the imperium is carefully stacked status quos between different factions and the leaders of said factions know this and for the most part like it that way, so they'll react badly to anyone trying to change it.
Even then I don't feel its backwards its just a fact of life, problems that need to be fixed in governments and the like don't tend to sit around twiddling their thumbs, they're usually there because someone benefits from it and someone is going to fight back if their means of parasiting off of the system is under threat.
And I know that, the problem is as you've pointed out it doesn't work because the inquisition lacks the ability to really hold members accountable for actions, so practically the only time something like that happens is when a puritan inquisitor goes off the rails and tries to burn rival for heresy.* Eitherway I was remarking more on the irony of the inquisition having an ordo for practically everything, but no inquisitor has had the idea that maybe they need a group dedicated to watching the watchers.
*and even that takes effort, like with this guy
Lichtenstein - Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum who got
six trials.
More generally, you're making a great deal of sweeping statements about the character of 90% of all Inquisitors that I don't feel are really sufficiently supported. Fundamentally, I want to center the conversation re: the Inquisition on "where are the structural failings of the Inquisition, and what would be a good system of reform to address those failings" rather than on "man Inquisitors sure are all crazy huh." Particularly when the latter sentiment still seems rather more meme-generated than anything else tbh. Dysfunctionality does not require madness, and assuming it does is a good way to skate past the reality that people can be perfectly individually rational and still be institutionally complicit in a dysfunctional system. And when you fail to acknowledge that reality, that's the first step on the road to assuming that anybody who's opposed to you must just be crazy, which is not historically a fruitful and productive path to travel.
And I really do disagree. You're correct that inquisitors in media are generally the extremes, but the problem is the imperium is an institution built upon a foundation of extremism, where people are meant to compete to actively out fanatic one another in their various goals. As such the difference in extremism for much of the inquisition is primarily based not on personality, but on the opportunity to act (and in their careers inevitability often enough. Live long enough to see yourself become the villain and all that especially with piss poor mental health care.)
And besides I think you're being very dismissive of the point, which I've noticed as being a thing. FFS stop trying to shut down discussion by going "oh don't talk about that, focus on what we can do to reform things!" No thank you if I want to just talk about "huh those inquisitors be crazy" I think I should be allowed too. Irregardless I can't possibly imagine where I'd get the impression that they might be full of nutters one one of the least bad inquisitors I know has this to say on the subject of exterminatus "Some may question your right to destroy ten billion people. Those who understand realise that you have no right to let them live!"
I am obviously incapable of proving that a super majority of inquisitors are all nuts, I think its a very reasonable hypothesis
Back to the point, you're desire to focus on institutions is one thing, but those institutions are made up of people, who are going to be violently opposed to Pandora changing those institutions, and even assuming the fewest possible number of truly loopy inquisitors there are still more than enough to fight back hard and bitterly.
And no dysfunctionality does not require madness, however madness and the like are relative in the eyes of the beholder. For what the imperium is, most inquisitors are entirely sane, in fact they're the only sane people in room as far as many (especially themselves) are concerned, the difference is most would still happily kill millions to get a single cultist without giving a crap that their actions might cause the creation of many many more cultists, and they do that
because it is normal for the inquisition.
Its at its most extreme for people like Karamazov who consider innocence merely proof that an accused is guilty of wasting his time and thus are executed for that, but his popularity gets to the essential point that his methods are considered the pinnacle of what an Inquisitor should be in that regard. What's more those who got angry at him, did so not because he rounded up and massacred so many innocent people, but because he tweaked the nose of the ecclisiarchy and his fellows.
Still he's not dysfunctional, this all makes perfect sense to him and to the rest of the imperium and inquisition. To them it is
entirely rational to kill as many people as you have too in order to get a single person, and anyone who says otherwise is a mornoic fool, this is a maxim indoctrinated into Inquisitors as they're learning!
So again I would ask you to not dismiss me as simply going "oh they're crazy" they're crazy because of the system they've been made a part of which is part of a larger system of nutters, which sees only "results." TBF I disagree with the idea
anyone is perfectly rational, in fact I disagree that human beings are rational most of the time if ever, but that's not the point I'm trying to make.
The point is, I call them crazy because their actions are crazy to me, even when I'm fully capable of understanding the logic they took to arrive at those conclusions I still think they're crazy to me (and I dearly hope I never feel so desperate that their solutions become appealing.)
What I am not doing however is calling them crazy in their own context. Their actions are entirely normalised, accepted and encouraged with no real means of getting around that fact, which is something
we have to address.
It does no good to reform how the inquisition works if the inquisitors themselves still see no issue in what they were doing before so continue in the new system. We'll stop the ones who go super happy with the super weapons sure, but we won't have stopped the Karamazovs.
